Weeoo, weeoo, weeoo. Go long the IMF:
I give up – what’s with the International Monetary Fund publishing an out-of-date forecast for the Australian economy? Has the shadow of official Joe Hockey gloom fallen over its Washington headquarters?
As it was summarised by the AFR, the IMF officially reckons the Australian “economy is likely to remain in the doldrums this year and next” with GDP growth of 2.6 per cent in 2014 and 2.7 per cent in 2015, according to the forecasts released on Tuesday night.
Excuse me – the Australian economy is in the doldrums? That’s not what the Australian Bureau of Statistics is saying. Yet the IMF report was dutifully and widely reported as if it was credible news.
…Retail sales have been almost ridiculously strong for the past six months, building approvals are as good as they ever are, the trade surplus is rocketing along, there are even signs of life in that lagging indicator, the labour market, and the Reserve Bank has reported there’s optimism returning to tourism.
The relative unknown is just how badly the slowdown in resources construction will impact the overall figure. The mining part of that is going to be sharp as the year rolls on, but there’s enough happening in the rest of the economy to think it’s certainly not a one-way bet.
…Quite simply, it looks like the IMF has been nobbled.
For once, the IMF, famously wrong on everything, can rest easy that’s it’s firmly on the right track. Weeoo, weeoo, weeoo.
